Van Halen Ditches Even More Widdly-Woo Shows

It's not a good time to be a fan of giant-haired widdly-woo nostalgic Spandex rock right now.

Not only do you have to live with the fact that you've wasted a great big portion of your life endorsing the very worst type of music ever invented, but now Van Halen have postponed a load more reunion dates as well.

This is the second batch of shows that Van Halen have ditched this month so far, and it's all because Eddie Van Halen is currently being tested for a mystery medical condition. Sounds serious. We just hope that whatever the condition is, it's important enough to deny thousands of fans the chance to pay an inflated amount of money to see a gang of old men play music that all sounds like the theme-tune to Biker Mice From Mars.

Van Halen has always enjoyed something of a fluid line-up but, among the 400 singers and schoolboy bassists called Wolfgang that have passed through Van Halen's ranks, Eddie Van Halen has always remained the constant of the band.

Sure, Eddie Van Halen may have taken the odd day off to record Michael Jackson's most overrated song or develop a crippling substance abuse problem or two, but he's always been the beating heart of Van Halen. So when Eddie Van Halen contracts a mystery illness and has to go and be tested, that pretty much spells curtains for Van Halen as a band.

Earlier this month Van Halen cancelled a few dates because of Eddie Van Halen's 'issues. At the time we were undecided whether this meant Eddie Van Halen had fallen out with his bandmates for the billionth time in a decade, or whether his ex-wife's autobiography had plunged him back headfirst into a blizzard or booze and drugs, or whether he just has post-traumatic stress disorder from that time his garden got a bit flooded.

But now that a total of 17 Van Halen dates have been disrupted, it's starting to look like Eddie Van Halen might actually have quite a serious medial problem, as Reuters reports:

Rock band Van Halen's reunion tour fell into disarray on Monday when it announced it would postpone all shows through April 19 while guitarist Eddie Van Halen undergoes tests for an unspecified medical condition… According to organizers, Van Halen, 53, who has battled cancer and substance abuse, "is currently under doctors' care" and will "continue medical tests to define a course of treatment." No further details were made available.

Sounds worrying and, although his music makes us want to tear lumps of flesh out of our faces, we still hope that Eddie Van Halen's condition isn't as deadly as it's starting to sound.

Because, seriously, first Patrick Swayze and now Eddie Van Halen? Our 1980s icons are being obliterated. And these things always come in threes, so if we were Steve Guttenberg or Roland Rat we'd be bloody well cacking it at the moment.

Read more:

Van Halen scraps more shows amid mystery ailment - Reuters